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Native stereotypes in movies
How does the media influence how we perceive our society
Native stereotypes in movies
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In my media analysis paper, I have decided to examine and delineate how the media portrays Latino women in television and focus on how race, and gender, have a huge impact on how women continue to be stereotyped and negatively attacked by the media. Television and the media constantly attacks the objectification of women in ads and it confirmed the difference in nature of comments about women vs men. From my view, the media focuses much more deeply on a whole array of negative or limiting aspects of women, including an intense scrutiny of and emphasis on their looks, and condemning, how women continue to struggle so hard to balance life, work, and attain an education.
The United States has often been depicted as a nation of immigrants and
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although many families have a multitude of stories about immigration and migration in their immediate or distant past, the origins of immigrants to the United States and their journey vary considerably. According to the United State Census, about 12.5 percent of the entire population is Latino, the largest ethnic minority group in our nation. “Generational differences, language preference, family, legal status, acculturation, to U.S customs, holding onto native traditions, religion, and geographical location are but a few of the factors that influence how U.S Latinos perceived their environment. In turn, these factors also contribute to how members of the at-large U.S society view Latinos, the nation’s largest minority group.” (Hays, D. G., & Erford, B. T. 2014 p 313). At a very early age, I had learned from the media and members of society that Latino women were constantly portrayed as sexy, hot, curvy, freaky, slutty, and loud. The media often portrays women as some exotic commodity. The first thing I realized is that for the Latino women our bodies is what determined our value and that we were no more than a sex objects for male consumption. I started making my own assumptions of Latino women and believed them to be dirty and disrespectful. I started to believe that all Latino women were whores and immoral, and as a result, I began to resent my culture and was ashamed to be of Latin decent. “When it comes to stereotyping Latinos, the media tends to translate everything negatively. Comfortable sexuality is labeled as prostitution or being vamp-ish, having a lot of kids is associated with being impoverished. Viewers’ unrealistic view of serious problems and lack of understanding of Latino culture allows Media portrayals to cultivate and reinforce myths about the Latino community. These negative views also lend themselves to negative propaganda against Latino communities.” (www.Umich.edu). A great example of Latina stereotypes is with celebrities like Selma Hayek and Penelope Cruz in the movie Bandidas.
Although these Latino women were the protagonist, it doesn’t excuse the fact that they were many scenes where both women were over-sexualized for the benefit of the male gaze. First of all, let’s dig deeper and think about the many things that are inappropriate about this movie. For example, the meaning of the title of the movie Bandidas means “bandits” and imposes a Mexican stereotype portraying the Latino race as criminals and thieves. “The film’s title and the outlaw theme intend to evoke familiar cinematic representations of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans in Hollywood and in America’s history: bandits, villains, cowboys, and vaqueros.” (Ruiz-Alfaro, 200). Although the women were portrayed as thieves and criminals, the movie assured themselves that the Latino women continued to be seen as attractive and sexy to the audience. In my opinion, it seemed that the producer of this film, had an ulterior motive for this movie, they wanted the audience to have fun, and mostly enjoy the sex and the beauty that these women were displaying on screen. From movies to music videos, the stereotyping of Latino women and its culture continues to be ridiculed and places women in a disadvantageous …show more content…
position. Stereotypes are dangerous, when I think about the word stereotype, the first words that comes into mind are bullying, demeaning, and disrespectful.
Unfortunately, is not only the stereotypes that degrade Latino women, it’s also the constant pressure portrayed by the media, and television ads, that continues to pressure the Latino women to be sexy, thin, young. The hypersexual Latina stereotype portrays unrealistic expectations, where many of the Latino women are forced to abide and portrayed as something there really not. “Similar to the effects on African-Americans, the media has perpetuated stereotypes about Latin-Americans, those of which differ from the typical non-Hispanic woman. These images are shown on television, which is heavily consumed by Latin-American women. Latin-American women on average watch four more hours of television daily than women in other ethnic groups. Due to this increase in exposure, Latin-American women are more susceptible to negative images, making comparisons to the media ideal more detrimental. As a result, Latin-Americans have a heavy loyalty to the health and beauty industry. The support that they give to this industry may be associated with the dissatisfaction felt when media ideals are used for comparison.” (Martin & Baugh,
2009). In conclusion, we live in a society where women as a whole are expected to be thin, young and beautiful and those that don’t meet those expectations or fit into that mold are ridiculed and body shamed. The media, and television continue to subject women and minorities to the same messages by expecting unrealistic standards. It is important for the Latino women and minorities to hold the media accountable for their bulling and stereotyping. We must not lose the power of our voice and set a new standard. Let’s advocate and be an example for the future generation of women and end the false and unfair treatment women receive by the media, and television.
As showed in the film, Latino American often misrepresented and underrepresented both in front of and under the camera. American Hispanic often portrayed as lazy, unintelligent, greasy and criminal. Hispanic women often pictured comfortable sexuality as prostitution in film production; while Hispanic actors limit to criminal characters such as drug dealers, gangster, and provide the power for the white American. Audiences have less interaction with Latino in their real world might be easily framed by media images regarding the race and ethnicity. The lack of Hispanic history and culture understanding allows these media portrayals to change and form unfavorable behavior and attitude against Latino communities.
A question that every high school student is faced with is: “What extracurricular activities so you participate in?” Some can answer confidently while others are slapped with a moment of sudden realization. These people are just floating along with the crowd, with no driving force or motivation. What I believe differentiates me from my peers and gives me a sense of uniqueness, is what I do outside of my academia. Out of the deluge of activities that are available, Latinos In Action is the one that I feel the most passionate about and shapes my persona the most.
When someone say’s “hispanic,” what definition comes to mind? Hispanics are not one nationality, nor one culture. Instead, Hispanics are greatly diverse people. Our language and cultural origins are Spanish and Latin American, regardless of race and color. Hispanics can be European, Indian, or of African descent, or any combination of the three. The culture could be linked to Mexico, the Caribbean countries, Central America, South America and Spain. Hispanics were once considered a rarity in the United States, now we are found throughout the country.
These movies allowed female characters to embody all the contradictions that could make them a woman. They were portrayed as the “femme fatale” and also “mother,” the “seductress” and at the same time the “saint,” (Newsom, 2011). Female characters were multi-faceted during this time and had much more complexity and interesting qualities than in the movies we watch today. Today, only 16% of protagonists in movies are female, and the portrayal of these women is one of sexualization and dependence rather than complexity (Newsom, 2011).
The usage of media is huge in nowadays. People rely on different kinds of media to receive information in their everyday life because they are thirsty for the diverse and informative content. However, inaccurate portrayals of people from different races always appear in the media and audience will exaggerate those portrayals by their inflexible beliefs and expectations about the characteristics or behaviors of the portrayals’ cultural groups without considering individual variation (Ting-Toomey and Chung, 2012); in fact, it is also called as stereotypes. According to a study by the Center for Integration and Improvement of Journalism at San Francisco State University (Stein, 2012), racial stereotyping continues to occur in media and the mainstream media's coverage of different cultural groups is full of biased reporting, offensive terminology and old stereotypes of American society. It specifically emphasizes that majority of the stereotyped characters in media will only bring out the dark side of their cultural groups which many of them might not be true, especially for the portrayals of black community: African American.
The increase and changing demography in the United State today, with the disparities in the health status of people from different cultural backgrounds has been a challenge for health care professionals to consider cultural diversity as a priority. It is impossible for nurses and other healthcare professionals to learn and understand theses diversity in culture, but using other approaches like an interpreter is very helpful for both nurses and patients. In this paper of a culturally appropriate care planning, I will be discussing on the Hispanic American culture because, I had come across a lot of them in my career as a nurse. The Hispanic are very diverse in terms of communication and communities and include countries like Mexico, Cuba, Puerto Rico, South and Central America, and some of them speak and write English very well, some speaks but can’t write while some can’t communicate in English at all but Spanish.
After the Mexican-American War (1846-1848) roughly 77,000 Mexican people became citizens of the United States. Since then many of these citizens and later immigrants have been treated as unequal persons or worse. In the early part of the 20th century Mexican Americans faced injustices such as segregation, inequalities in employment, housing, education, and even frequent hangings. Further, they were not allowed to vote due to the fact that many of them had difficulty understanding English, and were not permitted to learn the language. Mexicans were not allowed to vote, and when they finally were they had to pay money for the right to vote. A large number of the Mexican people did not have the money to pay for this right, so their white bosses paid the fee and told them to vote for a candidate that favored the boss.
My object of study is Hispanic women experience inequality in education due to the social constructs of subordination of women and Hispanic culture. Historically women have been conditioned with a patriarchal system, which a woman’s domain should be at home, to be a homemaker. The ideology of inferiority can and will justify the deprivation of natural born rights. During the progressive area and women’s rights movement women wanted to be seen as people, they wanted to have rights to own property, negotiate wages, legal documents, access to birth control, and the right to vote, those women who had the voice to deal with these issues were white upper and middle class women. During this time Hispanic women, amongst other minorities, were fighting battles against racism, segregation, exploitation in the work force, access to a good education, and oppression through Hispanic culture. It is not just a struggle to be Hispanic overcoming the inequalities within the education system but to be a Hispanic women within the education system has greater disadvantages. This case study will investigate what forces contribute to the inequality within the education system for Hispanic women in the United States.
Currently there is a long-standing debate dealing with the effects of media. Some believe that the media is just something to indulge or watch and that it has no significant affect on people while others say that has a powerful pull on society as a whole. Research indicates that bias in media articles leads to minorities and women being portrayed in a stereotypical or harsh manner (Hazell and Clarke 3). This leads to African Americans being seen as individuals fit for “lower status occupations,” (Hazel and Clark 7). Black men were also seen as hostile, intimidating figures mainly working as athletes or musicians while women were portrayed as domineering, overly expressive people (Hazel and Clark 9).
Today there are many cultures of Hispanic/Latino background that are affect by the social norms that have been constructed. It has become hard for Hispanics to hold the expectations that are set on them by our society. As of 2017 we are set to norms that men and women are expected to follow. Patriarchy plays a major role in how we uphold those standards. Before beginning, I would like to identify a key term that will be used many times throughout this paper. Patriarchy is best defined as a political-social system that implies that males are dominant, and superior to everything and everyone, especially females (Hook). Hook suggests that men are admired in society while females are to be inferior. Throughout this paper, I will be exploring the
Multiracial Feminism: Recasting the Chronology of Second Wave Feminism introduces ideas by Becky Thompson that contradict the “traditional” teachings of the Second Wave of feminism. She points out that the version of Second Wave feminism that gets told centers around white, middle class, US based women and the central problem being focused on and rallied against is sexism. This history of the Second Wave does not take into consideration feminist movements happening in other countries. Nor does it take into consideration the feminist activism that women of color were behind, that centered not only on sexism, but also racism, and classism as central problems as well. This is where the rise of multiracial feminism is put to the foreground and
Also, pressure from peers in schools and workplaces are causing women to rethink the way they look at their bodies. Dr. Ferguson of Texas A&M conducted a survey on Hispanic girls ages 10 to 17, in which they rated the looks of the actresses on three popular television shows. Also, they were asked about their bodies and how they were affected by what others thought of them. The results from their survey concluded “neither television ex...
The media, through its many outlets, has a lasting effect on the values and social structure evident in modern day society. Television, in particular, has the ability to influence the social structure of society with its subjective content. As Dwight E. Brooks and Lisa P. Hébert write in their article, “GENDER, RACE, AND MEDIA REPRESENTATION”, the basis of our accepted social identities is heavily controlled by the media we consume. One of the social identities that is heavily influenced is gender: Brooks and Hébert conclude, “While sex differences are rooted in biology, how we come to understand and perform gender is based on culture” (Brooks, Hébert 297). With gender being shaped so profusely by our culture, it is important to be aware of how social identities, such as gender, are being constructed in the media.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, however what is considered beautiful by some is not considered as beauty when discussing diversity within the media. Society is based on criticism of judging one’s characters body, shape and or race/ethnics background. In the media the society only sees one type that is only focused on perfection to the mind; however within the United States, it is very typical in that the media lacks ethnic representation, cultural identity and gender inequalities. There are no ethnic representation when it comes to the media world and that the media has been trained to believe that the ethnic groups are not valuable. African Americans and Hispanics writers are the minority group when it comes to a social group. According to journalist Prince and Television critic Deggans “CNN , let go one of its most high-profile anchor of color, Soledad O’Brien, replaced her with a white man, Chris Cuomo. Wolf Blitzer gave up one of his hours to another white man, Tapper. Though Zucker met with both National Association of Black Journalists and the National Association of Hispanic Journalist to try and address their concerns, there has been no overt sign from CNN that it is bringing on any more anchors of color, ”(Mirkinson p.1).
A study shows that 44% of Latino high school students aim to lose weight due to the representations of media and stereotypes. This study also shows that these students turn to extreme measures of weight loss such as vomiting and laxative abuse. The need for these students to lose weight as quickly as they can, are caused by how the media presents what is attractive and what is not - for example, women in the media are shown to be thinner than average (Lopez et al.,